In a masterful statement of the obvious ... wait, let me put that more diplomatically. In a welcome example of easily observable evidence, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has found that the richest 10 per cent of Canadians have an ecological footprint that is 66 per cent bigger than that of the average Canadian household.

Well, in a word, duh.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and hypothesize that a similar statistic holds for other countries. I'm guessing anyone who can't afford to travel by airplane does not contribute to that source of air pollution. And -- here's a wild speculation -- maybe people who buy less stuff don't put out as much garbage!

Hey -- what about all those people who just can't afford a 5,000-square-foot house built on outlying arable land? They're saving the planet and didn't even know it!

In our 90-year-old urban house, a tight budget pretty much ensures that we easily stay within Hamilton's one-container garbage limit -- even though we have 10 kids. It also ensures that all the light bulbs in our house are compact fluorescent bulbs that are turned off when not in use. Most of our furniture is second hand -- as are the bikes. And with the price of gas lately, our driving has been severely curtailed -- so the bikes are in use plenty.

So I find it pretty hilarious when I hear people who can afford winter trips to the tropics every year talk about not wanting to have kids because they want to limit the size of their ecological footprint. I suspect what they really mean when they worry about there not being enough to go around in the future is that there will be less for them. It's almost as funny as David Suzuki jetting about the globe, or Al Gore buying carbon offset credits so he can justify heating his swimming pool. It's as funny as declaring the Live Earth concert "carbon neutral," when we all have a pretty good idea of the luxuries a rock star consumes from day to day.

And now Liberal leader Stephane Dion is proposing a carbon tax -- a tax on all things carbon to reduce overall emissions.

I predict that, if it is implemented, wealthy households will simply see it as an expense of living in the style to which they are accustomed, and won't reduce their carbon emissions by much because they can afford not to.

Meanwhile, poorer people who have no choice but to drive their cars to get to work -- sometimes great distances -- will be hurt by it. You can't telecommute to a factory job.

Oh, I know that an income-tax cut is part of Dion's overall plan -- but it's clear an income-tax cut is of proportionately greater benefit to those who have more income. And I suspect that, along with helping better-off citizens afford the carbon tax, it will also put more money in their pockets to buy more stuff or fly more places. Just this week, an article on boating and gas prices in The Spectator pointed out that people who can afford yachts can afford to fill them up, too.

So is a carbon tax really the wisest solution? After all, the CCPA study indicates that, in the words of research associate Hugh Mackenzie: "Clearly ecological impact is strongly related to income. Greenhouse gas emissions policies should reflect that reality or risk being less effective and unfair to low- and middle-class Canadians."

It seems there is more than one inconvenient truth in this whole climate debate.

Michelle Martin lives in Hamilton.